_The Cathedral_
The monument which dominates Toledo, and which is not only the most
prominent feature in a town whose every feature is so marked and
significant, so unlike all the travelled eye is most familiar with, but
is the centre of its changes and vicissitudes, of its triumphs and
humiliations, is the Cathedral. Writing of the high terrace on which it
stands, M. Maurice Barrès says: "c'était toujours le même sublime qui
jamais ne rassasie les âmes, car en même temps qu'elles s'en remplissent
il les dilate à l'infini." Who is to seize and express with any adequacy
or even coherence the first swift and stupefying impression of this
superb edifice? There are many things in this world more beautiful--no
one for instance would dream of speaking of it in the same breath as the
Parthenon--but nothing more sumptuous; nothing in all the treasures of
Spain to match its magnificence. It is simpler and more majestic than
that of Burgos, and before heeding the instinct of examination, or
noting its mass of detail, the first imperious command is to yield in
charmed surrender to its spirit. We are silenced and held by the general
effect long before we come to admire the exquisite sculpture of
Berruguete and of Philip of Burgundy, and the splendours of chapels and
treasury. And should time be short for detailed inspection, it is this
general effect of immense naves, of a forest of columns and of jewelled
windows that we carry away, feeling too small amidst such greatness of
form and incomparable loveliness of lights for the mere expression of
admiration. At sunset, should you have the fortune to be alone among its
pillars and stained-glass windows, you will find nothing on earth to
compare with the mysterious eloquence of its silence; you will feel it a
place not for prayer but for a salutary conception of man's
insignificance.
Castillian genius has nowhere imprinted a haughtier effigy of its
invincible pride and fanaticism, insusceptible to the humiliations of
decay and defeat, impervious to the encroachments of progress and
enlightenment. It is the vast monumental note of Spanish character and
Spanish history. It tells the eternal tale of ecclesiastical domination
and triumph, and is the fitting home of portraits of warlike cardinals
and armoured bishops, of princes of the Church who wore the purple and
ruled with the sword. It is a superb and majestic harmony of marvellous
stone-work and painted glass.
The foundation of this most gorgeous temple is attributed to Saint
Eugenius, the first bishop of Toledo, and on the conversion of Recaredo
from Arianism, was dedicated to the Virgin Mary, April 12th, 587. When
the Moors took Toledo, the Cathedral was converted into a mosque, which
it remained for nearly three centuries. Then when Alfonso VI. won back
the town from the Moors, one of the conditions we know in the treaty for
surrender was that the Cathedral should continue as a mosque, and remain
in the hands of the conquered, upon which stipulation, solemnly
ratified, the Moors gave up the Alcázar, the city gates and bridges.
Alfonso intended that this condition should be fulfilled, but the queen
and the French archbishop, sorely troubled by the monstrous continuance
of heretical service in the consecrated temple of St Eugenius, decided
to cast out the Saracen, which injustice furnishes us with a pretty
evidence of Moorish magnanimity. Alfonso's was an exceedingly grim
interpretation of the chivalrous sentiment, "I could not love thee,
dear, so much, loved I not honour more." However, the Moors gallantly
tore up the treaty and resigned all right to the Cathedral. The least
they might have expected from their enemies is a full and fine
recognition of their generosity, first in pleading for those who had
insulted them, and then in foregoing their own advantage in order to
procure the pardon of their insulters. But no. The Moors, in this
matter, are regarded as having simply done their duty. One would
hesitate to credit their conquerors with a like behaviour in similar
circumstances. The Alfaqui's statue in the Capilla Major is regarded as
adequate thanks, and perhaps it is.
In the thirteenth century, Ferdinand III. and the Archbishop Rodrigo
Jimenez de Rada, decided to rebuild the Cathedral and efface all
remembrance of Saracen occupation. Pedro Perez was chosen for the
immense work, which he continued for forty-nine years, beginning in
1227. The names of his successors have not reached us. It took two and a
half centuries to conclude, and as the building went on, naturally
gathered into its entire expression more than one mood of Spanish
history and art. One needs only to contrast the rudeness of the _Puerta
de la Feria_, built in the thirteenth century, with the finish and grace
of the _Puerta de los Leones_, one of the most beautiful specimens of
Gothic architecture, the work of the fifteenth century. Egas, Fernandez
and Juan Aleman wrought it, and in 1776 Salvatierra restored part of it.
The temple stands upon eighty-eight pillars, each one composed of
sixteen light columns, and seventy-two vaults above the five wide naves,
forming a cross over the centre nave which is higher than the rest. The
side aisles rise gradually to
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF CATHEDRAL]
the height of 160 feet, the height of the central nave. Its length is
404 feet, its width 204. The whole is lit up by 750 glorious stained
windows, whose effect is best seized just before sunset. Broad patches
of ruby, amethyst, emerald, topaz, and sapphire lie upon the pillars and
flags, and above the light seems to strike through irridescent flashes
of jewels. How fresh and full imagination must have been in those grand
ages of art to have devised such permanent triumphs of colours, such
witchery of hue upon such majesty of form, the greatness of the one
tempered by the delightful loveliness of the other. The patient uplifted
glance will at length be rewarded by learning to decipher from such a
distance the legend of these matchless windows, which are wonderfully
vivid scenes from the New Testament. A Spanish painter, who has devoted
his life to the study of his beloved Toledo, tells me that when you
penetrate up to these far-off heights, you will find the scenes in
finish and detail and drawing as perfect as paintings, some of the
German and Flemish school, some of the richer and suaver Italian. The
principal artists were Dolfin, Alberto de Holanda, Maestro Christobal,
Juan de Campos, Luis, Pedro Francès, and Vasco Troya. Dolfin's work,
begun in 1418, was continued after his death by Nicolás de Vergara,
assisted by his two sons.
The principal façade on the west side is composed of three doors,
diversely named _del Infierno_ or _de la Torre_; _del Perdon_, and _de
Escribanos_ or _del Juicio_. The middle door is the Pardon, the largest
and richest of the three. It forms a magnificent arch, covered with
Gothic ornaments and figures, and is divided in two smaller arches by a
column on which rests the figure of Christ, while above are twelve
statues of the apostles. In the centre of the arch a fine bas-relief
represents the Virgin in the act of bestowing the chasuble on St
Ildefonso, who is kneeling at her feet. It is an imposing specimen of
Renaissance work. Amador de los Rios complains that there is too much of
the stiffness of Dürer in the studied attitudes, while Antonio Ponz
remarks that the statues and the folds have that excellence and
largeness of treatment so often lacking even in the best Renaissance
work. The two other doors on either side are smaller and of equal size.
They are formed of a single, undivided arch, delicately sculptured, rich
in figures of angels and patriarchs in mediæval costume, which belong to
a later date than the principal work. Seven steps lead down to the
church, and above the arch of the _Torre_ is a painting of the
Resurrection of some merit, and above the _Escribanos_ is a long
inscription commemorating the taking of Granada by the Catholic
sovereigns, Cardinal Mendoza being then archbishop of the Cathedral, and
the expulsion of the Jews from the kingdoms of Castille, Aragon, and
Sicily. Over the _Pardon_ is a splendid rose window, with glazed arcade
beneath. The façade was restored, and not too well, by Durango, a
Toledan artist, during the last century. The little square towers that
separate the doors are chiselled like jewels, but the effect of the
whole is perhaps effaced by the more insistent beauty of the great
tower.
The south door, _Los Leones_, is a particularly beautiful piece of
Gothic work, of finished elegance and profusion of detail. Ponz
describes the statues and ornaments as the most perfect of their kind.
The portal forms a deep recess richly sculptured, full of delicate fancy
in figure and leafage. The Assumption is by Salvatierra of the last
century, inferior to the rest of the façade, and below it are two
bas-reliefs with charming little figures representing scenes from the
Old Testament. The six columns of the atrium, on which are seated six
carved lions, give its name to the door. Each lion holds a shield. On
the centre shields are repeated in bas-relief the eternal legend of Our
Lady and St Ildefonso, while the four others show sculptural crosses and
eagles. The bronze doors, attributed by Ponz to Berreguete, because they
recall the work of his master, Michael Angelo, were wrought by Francisco
Villalpando and Ruy Diaz del Corral in 1559, the carving having been
done by the famous sculptor, Aleas Copin. Their great artistic work is
sufficiently indicated by Ponz's error in attributing them to the
magnificent genius of Berreguete. As a fact, many masters were engaged
upon these bronze gates: Velasco, Troyas, Lebin, Cantala, the two Copins
as well as Villalpando, and Diaz del Corral, the payment divided between
all being 68,672 maravedis. It would seem that the supreme excellence of
artistic achievement in those days was due to the modesty of
remuneration, if we are to judge by the results of exorbitant payment
to-day.
In his accurate (if for the general reader perhaps somewhat technical)
pages on the interior, Street says: "The original scheme of the church
is only to be seen now in the choir and its aisles. These are arranged
in three gradations of height--the choir being upwards of a hundred
feet, the aisle round it about sixty feet, and the outer aisle about
thirty-five feet in height. The outer wall of the aisle is pierced with
arches for the small chapels between the buttresses. The intermediate
aisle has in its outer wall a triforium, formed by an arcade of cusped
arches, and above this quite close to the point of the vault, a rose
window in each bay. It is in this triforium that the first evidence of
any knowledge on the part of the architect of Moorish architecture
strikes the eye. The cusping of the arcade is not enclosed within an
arch, and takes a distinctly horse-shoe outline, the lowest cusp near to
the cap spreading inwards at the base. Now it would be impossible to
imagine any circumstances which could afford better evidence of the
foreign origin of the first design than this slight concession to the
customs of the place in a slightly later portion of the works. An
architect who came from France, bent on designing nothing but a French
church, would be very likely, after a few years' residence in Toledo,
somewhat to change in his views, and to attempt something in which the
Moorish work, which he was in the habit of seeing, would have its
influence. The detail of this triforium is, notwithstanding, all pure
and good. The foliage of the capitals is partly conventional, and in
part a stiff imitation of natural foliage, somewhat after the fashion of
the work in the Chapter House at Southwell; the abaci are all square;
there is a profusion of nail-head used in the labels; and well-carved
heads are placed in each of the spandrels of the arcade. The circular
windows above the triforium are filled in with cusping of various
patterns. The main arches of the innermost arcade (between the choir and
its aisle) are of course much higher than the others. The space above
them is occupied by an arcaded triforium reaching to the springing of
the main vault. This arcade consists of a series of trefoil-headed
arches on detached shafts, with sculptured figures, more than life-size,
standing in each division; in the spandrels above the arches are heads
looking out from moulded circular openings, and above these again, small
pointed arches are pierced, which have labels enriched with the
nail-head ornament. The effect of the whole of this upper part of the
design is unlike that of northern work, though the detail is all pure
and good. The clerestory occupies the height of the vault and consists
of a row of lancets (there are five in the widest bay, and three in each
of the five bays of the apse) rising gradually to the centre, with a
small circular opening above them. The vaulting-ribs in the central
division of the apse are chevroned and increased in number, this being
the only portion of the early work in which any, beyond transverse and
diagonal ribs, are introduced. There is a weakness and want of purpose
about the treatment of this highest portion of the wall that seems to
make it probable that the work, when it reached this height, had passed
out of the hands of the original architect. In the nave the original
design (if it was ever completed) has been altered. There is now no
trace of the original clerestory and triforium which are still seen in
the choir, and in their place the outer aisle has fourteenth century
windows of six lights with geometrical tracery, and the clerestory of
the nave and transepts great windows, also of six lights, with very
elaborate traceries. They have transomes (which in some degree preserve
the recollection of the old structural divisions) at the level of the
springing of the groining. The groining throughout the greater part of
the church seems to be of the original thirteenth century work, with
ribs finely moulded, and vaulting cells slightly domical in section. The
capitals of the columns are all set in the direction of the arches and
ribs they carry, and their abaci and bases are all square in plan."
Street is of the opinion, based upon the singular purity of this
vigorous specimen of Gothic of the thirteenth century, that the
architect must have been French, or at least a Spaniard who had lived
for years in France, and studied the best French churches. The
architect, we learn, was Pedro Perez, whose name we gather from the
Latin epitaph:
_Aqui: jacet: Petrus Petri: magister_
_Eclesia: Sete: Marie: Toletani: fama:_
_Per exemplum: pro more_: huic: bona:
_Crescit: qui presens: templem: construxit:_
_Et hic quies cit: quod: quia: tan: mire:_
_Fecit_: vili: sentiat: ire: ante: Dei:
_Vultum: pro: quo: nil: restat: inultum:_
_Et sibi: sis: merce: qui solus: cuncta:_
_Coherce: obiit: X dias de Novembris:_
_Era: de m: et CCCXXVIII._ (_A.D. 1290_).
Street suggests that Petrus Petro may more probably have meant the
French Pierre, son of Pierre, than the Spanish translation of Pedro
Perez, but putting one uncertainty against another, the Toledans are
perfectly right to hold out for their dubious compatriot, Pedro Perez.
[Illustration: NORTH TRANSEPT DOOR OF CATHEDRAL]
In spite of the enormous height of the Cathedral, the spectator is not
at first impressed with this fact, owing to the immensity of its
dimensions and the vastness of the columns that support the vaults. But
the impression of spaciousness is, on the contrary, insistent, and this
by the beautiful simplicity and classical uniformity of the whole. When
you have recovered the first stupendous shock of admiration, you will
wonder where to begin in your exploration. If you enter by the north
door, which is the first you will meet coming from the Zocodover, you
will at once be confronted with the wonderfully wrought screen of the
Coro. Inside and out this choir is rich in interest. First there is the
railed entrance to examine. Before the Napoleonic war, this railing, as
well as the _Reja_ of the Capilla Major, opposite, was silver-plated and
heavily gilt, but at the time of the French invasion, it was designed to
save it from ruthless hands by concealing its value under an iron
coating. The inventor of this stain succeeded so well that never since
has anyone been able to clean the railings, which now only show here and
there a gleam of the covered plate. Domingo de Céspedes, aided by
Fernando Bravo, designed this handsome work. Nothing finer than the
ornamentation could be imagined. The arms of Cardinal Siliceo and those
of Diego Lopez de Ayala, one of the great Toledan families of the Middle
Ages, are worked into the design, along with the inscriptions: _Pro cul
esto prophani_ and _Psale et psile_. To attempt anything like a detailed
description of so much elaborate work as the impressive screen round the
choir, or the interior multiplied creations of Berruguete and Philip of
Burgundy, of Vergara and Rodrigo, would demand an entire book upon the
Cathedral alone. The sculptures of the screen are most varied and
beautiful, and repay careful study. The subjects are separated by light
arches and supported on jasper columns. Above are fifty-eight reliefs of
biblical scenes, and the whole forms an admirable combination of
decorative richness and delicacy, unfortunately spoiled by later and
incongruous additions and improvements. Of the famous choir seats
everybody has heard. The thirty-five upper seats on the gospel side are
the work of Philip of Burgundy, the seats on the epistle side are
Berruguete's work. It is a matter of taste which of the two is the
better. Some foreign critics prefer Vigarny's sculpture as more delicate
and more finished; while all Spaniards give their preference to
Berruguete, one of the national idols, and delight in his more exuberant
genius. Writing of the three ranks of stalls of this truly marvellous
choir, Théophile Gautier says: "l'art Gothique, sur les confins de la
Renaissance, n'a rien produit de plus parfait ni de mieux dessiné."
Antonio Ponz in the last century wrote of it: "The sculpture of the
choir has been and always will be the great admiration of the
intelligent and those who understand this noble art, as much for the
quantities of figures and adornments, which seem innumerable, as for the
elegance, taste, and greatness of the style with which Alonzo Berruguete
and Philip of Burgundy have executed them." In his _Toledo Pintoresca_,
Amador de los Rios thus begins his description of the stalls: "Portent
of Spanish art, in which two great geniuses of our golden century
competed, the victory to our own times, remaining undecided; and
astounded the judges who have endeavoured to give their opinion on this
matter."
The stalls are of two ranks, upper and lower, both of different periods,
fifty years lying between the work of each rank. The upper stalls are
unquestionably more beautiful and of a purer style. The rich and
splendid influence of Italian art is visible in all Berruguete's work,
who himself was a disciple of Michael Angelo. He has something of the
large and virile touch of his master, something of his nervous strength,
of his intensity. But he lacks the exquisite grace and soft, subtle
finish of Philip Vigarny. So that in the eternal rivalry of these great
artists, hand-in-hand, as it were before posterity, with the unsolved
question
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF CATHEDRAL
CORO FROM S. AISLE]
of superiority upon their combined production of the best wood sculpture
of Spain, it will always be in the spectators' choice a matter of
temperament and tendency. The more delicate art of Vigarny will appeal
to one, while another will unhesitatingly pronounce for the sweep and
force of Berruguete's touch. The reliefs represent scenes from the Old
and New Testament, and the single statues are prophets and saints. The
stalls are of walnut, separated by jasper and alabaster pillars. In the
middle is the arch-episcopal throne. The lower portion is formed of
seventy-one arches, supported by seventy-two columns of red jasper, with
white marble capitals; within each arch is a vault of red jasper with
gilt decorations. In the panels above are sixty-eight superbly
sculptured figures. The lower stalls are fifty years earlier and less
beautiful work. They were wrought under the direction of Maese Rodrígo
in the time of Cardinal Mendoza. They are composed of fifty stalls, with
three stairs, two of which are used by the canons and the third only by
the archbishop, the dean of the chapter, and the high priest. The
reliefs are none the less remarkable and interesting because of their
inferiority to those of the upper stalls. They tell with delightful and
seizing brevity the romantic, if deplorable, tale of the Conquest of
Granada, from the taking of Alhama by Rodrigo Ponce de Leon to the
surrender of the Moorish citadel. They belong to a less finished school;
reveal an imagination more simple and limited, with a certain naïve
stiffness and monotony of line that provoke contrast with the finer work
above. Battles, assaults, armed knights, Moors, horses, fortresses and
fanciful introductions of inappropriate animals are repeated in each
relief. Street prefers them to Berruguete's work, which he abhors, but
in this he is alone. It is a prejudice with him. The reading-desks are
most lovely, the work of the two Vergaras, father and son, who finished
them in 1570. The ornamented friezes of gilt bronze are things to marvel
at. Each desk possesses three bas-relief exquisitely wrought. On the
epistle side are the stories of David and Saul, the Virgin bestowing the
chasuble on St Ildefonso, and the Seven Seals and Lake of Fire of the
Apocalypse; on the Gospel side, St Ildefonso, the Holy Ark carried by
the priests behind David, and other figures dancing and playing various
instruments, and the crossing of the Red Sea. There is not anything
among the extraordinary splendours of this Cathedral more perfect and
remarkable than these two masterpieces of the Vergaras. The great eagle
on its pinnacled pedestal is truly a magnificent work. The Gothic
pedestal was wrought in 1425, and the eagle and desk in 1646 by Vicente
Salinas. When you leave the Cora, you naturally cross the space in front
to the Capilla Major. Portion of this chapel was originally the _capilla
de los reyes viejos_, and the rest was added by the great Cardinal,
Cisneros. The railing, one of the best specimens of Spanish wrought
iron, is the work of Francisco Villalpando. Gorgeous is the adjective
that best describes it. Exquisite chiselling, capricious and varied
designs, gilt and plated portions here and there showing out from the
more sombre whole, make this _grilla_ one of the striking objects among
massed treasures. To Villalpando also are due the rich gilt pulpits
beside it, made from the bronze tomb the Constable of Castille, Alvazo
de Luna, had fashioned for himself and his wife before his death. In a
less sumptuous setting, these pulpits would excite enthusiastic
admiration, but the whole here is so great that it takes days for the
blunted senses to realise the full value of details. The reliefs are
admirable, and give a
[Illustration: DETAIL OF REJA, CATHEDRAL, TOLEDO]
brilliant note to the resplendent face of the chapel. All inside
maintains the same insistent look of artistic wealth. The marble altar
shines like a gigantic agathe, the highly-wrought tabernacle, the bronze
candlesticks, the jasper and the marvellous _retablo_ are, to my poor
thinking, excessive claims upon attention. So many masters co-operated
in the production of all this accumulated art that the effect of excess
is not surprising: Philip and John of Burgundy, Maestre Petit Jean,
Egas, Pedro Gumiel, Copin of Holland, Sebastian de Almonacid, all
sculptors and artists of renown; Francisco of Antwerp and Fernando del
Rincòn, famous painters and gilders. The details are innumerable, and
elsewhere would merit separate and full attention. The scenes are mostly
taken from the New Testament, terminating with a colossal Calvary. The
fine tombs on either side are the work of Copin of Holland (1507), and
the gilding and painting were done by Juan de Arevalo. They were erected
by order of Cisneros for the kings buried in the old chapel. They are
highly decorated and imposing monuments, worthy of the great man who
commanded them and of the great artists who wrought them under his
inspiration, worthy of century and temple that created and shelter them.
Classical elegance and Gothic fancy, exuberant imagination and austere
repose, are the complex qualities of these superb tombs. There are two
figures among those of the lateral pillars that divide the vaults it is
customary to bestow extra attention upon: the Alfaqui, who went out to
meet Alfonso VI. on his furious return to Toledo to burn his wife and
the French archbishop, to intercede on behalf of those who had so
grievously injured his people, and who, in order to obtain their pardon,
resigned Moorish rights to the Cathedral; and the _Pastor de las Navas_,
a legendary shepherd who is supposed to have indicated to Alfonso VIII.
the way of winning the battle of Navas de Tolosa. The sculpture is
coarse and heavy, and indicates an earlier period than the rest of the
work, Alfonso himself supposed to have been the designer of his shepherd
assistant in war. The Cardinal of Spain, as Mendoza was called, won the
distinction of a place in the royal chapel by order of Isabel, his
friend and sovereign. To make room for his tomb, she had the wall
between the two pillars near it knocked down. Ponz calls this tomb a
_maquina suntuosa_, but where there is so much to admire, it may be
passed by with merely a nod.
[Illustration: DETAIL, TOMB OF KING, GOSPEL SIDE OF HIGH ALTAR,
CATHEDRAL, TOLEDO]
[Illustration: TOMB OF CARDINAL MENDOZA]
Not so the too famous and too horrible _Trasparente_ behind the High
Altar. What such a thing can possibly mean surpasses the average
understanding. In the midst of all that one must venerate, in the home
of majesty and loveliness, where beauty in stone and wood and colour
takes its supreme form and hues, what effect but that of artistic
scandal can such a monstrous creation have? One stares, one wonders, one
could even weep for such inexplicable desecration, but one remains
mystified and disheartened. Ponz a century ago wrote: "It is marble, an
enormous affair in which it would have been better to have forever in
the bowels of the hills of Carrara than to have brought it here to be a
real blot in the Cathedral." This celebrated atrocity is the work of
Narciso Tomé, a native of Toledo, who, if he were useful for nothing
else to posterity, offers an exceptional opportunity of measuring the
frightful depths into which the dignity of Spanish art was plunged in
the beginning of the last century. The degraded art of Churriguera may
be bad enough elsewhere; here only does it stand out a gilt, magnificent
marble nightmare, which cannot even be criticised, so awed is
imagination by an ugliness that defies classification and repels reason.
The man who paid 200,000 ducats for this blot upon a perfect temple,
were he pope or bishop, merited at least a strait-waistcoat. Instead, he
and the artist, and the thing itself, evoked, on its conclusion,
national triumph and rejoicings, processions, illuminations, fire-works
and bull-fights. Consistency is not a virtue we have a right to expect
from races any more than from persons, so the massacre of horses and the
idle torture of bulls, the encouragement of the brute instinct of
cruelty, the destruction of which is admittedly the object of the mild
and tolerant religion of Christ, may be regarded as nothing inordinately
outrageous in ecclesiastical feastings. A modern Spanish critic is proud
to own that for his part "he would not touch a hair of the smallest
statue of this sumptuous fabrication," and regards it as an interesting
page in the history of Spanish architecture. There are of course curious
natures who find interest in corruption and a certain majesty in
madness. To these Churrigueresque masterpieces may be left, and with so
many stupendous demands upon our admiration as the Cathedral holds, such
a flaunting provocation of the contrary feeling may by the wise and
grateful be accepted as a pause, a rest in interjectional contentment.
In the dim subterranean chapel of the sepulchre, there are sculptures
and paintings worthy of inspection if there were light enough to see
them by. One can see, however, that the sculptural group representing
the burial of Christ by Copin of Holland is remarkable, but the
paintings remain vague and blurred in the partially illuminated
obscurity.
But however interesting each of the chapels may be, it is the general
view that remains the loveliest thing about the Cathedral. Before you
enter the space between the Coro and the Capilla Major, on looking up to
the circular pierced arches between the curving line of columns, you
will perceive a clear and charming evidence of Moorish influence in the
architecture. The delicate pillars and horse-shoe arcade are familiar
and welcome, and may again be seen running across the outer aisles.
Nothing more graceful could be imagined than this light foreign touch in
the sombre austerity of Gothic art. Again you are reminded of the Moors
by a rich arch covered with lace-work in the chapel of Santa Lucia,
mudejar rather than wholly Moorish, which looks quite oriental in front
of the Renaissance arch of the other side of the chapel. It is such a
variety in beauty that lends perpetual freshness to this monumental
glory of Toledo. It has a face for every tone of reverie and musing. The
light is always softly brilliant, and shadow not dense but suggestive;
the very silence has the penetrative quality of mysticism, so that
already on your second visit you will have ceased to feel a mere
tourist, so intimate and instantaneous is its possession of you. Each
day I have dwelt in the old imperial city, I have unconsciously wended
my way to its doors. No matter what direction I started to take, it
almost became a necessity to begin or end my daily wanderings by a
pause in this spiritualised immensity of stone. I have never found its
wonderful charm diminished by familiarity; on the contrary, the coloured
rays of light from above, striking upon the brown shade of stone, seem
ever more and more witching; the delicate tones of shadow more and more
mysterious, and the unrivalled grandeur of long forested perspectives of
aisles and of spacious naves, with the multiplicity of arches and
windows, ever a greater testimony of Toledo's departed glory.
Space forbids anything like a detailed account of the chapels and
cloisters of the Cathedral. These latter are not to be compared with
most of the other Spanish cloisters,--with, for instance, those of
Segovia, of Santiago, of Burgos or Oviedo. There is the inevitable
felicitous contrast of foliage and columned arch, and here, certainly,
the note is more joyous than elsewhere, with the deep yellow light
striking radiantly upon this large, airy square of sun-shot leafage open
to the heavens. The cloisters were built by Cardinal Tenorio, and Blas
Ortiz, a contemporary Toledan of Philip II. describes them in his
beautiful caligraphy, preserved in the _Biblioteca Provinciale_, as
"sumptuous." This is a favourite adjective with the Spaniards who write
about Toledo. It saves a multiplicity of explanations. The frescoes on
the walls, painted by Bayeu after the manner of Vanloo, represent scenes
from the life of St Eugenius and the famous legend of the _Niño
perdido_. They are decorative but not interesting, and Gautier
pronounces them out of keeping with the austere elegance of the
architecture. It must be earlier paintings, since effaced, that Blas
Ortiz describes as _perfectissime_. The fine door of the Presentation, a
good specimen of _plateresca_ work, was wrought by Pedro Castañeda, Juan
Vasquez, Toribio Rodriguez, Juan Manzano, and Andréz Hernandez. The
design and the reliefs are well worth careful examination. The _portada
de Santa Catalina_ commands attention. It is excessively decorated, and
bears the arms of Spain and of the Tenorios; one of the finest details
of the façade is the statue of St Catherine holding in one hand the
wheel and in the other the sword, emblems of her martyrdom. Historical
value is attached to Bayeu's frescoe representing the reception at
Toledo of the bones of St Eugenius, 1565. Philip II. and his son are
there, as well as the archdukes Rudolph and Ernest, and there is a view
of the Puerta Visagra through which the procession entered. Other
frescoes treat of the Moorish saint Casilda, and on the north side is
the chapel of St Blaise, built also by Tenorio as his coat of arms
indicates. On a pedestal within a railing is a fragment found near St
John of the Penetencia testifying to the date of the consecration of the
Cathedral.
Near the cloister entrance is the chapel of St John or the Canons, as
mass can only be said here by the chapter. The old Tower chapel here
used to be called the _Quo Vadis_, and was dedicated to St Peter.
Cardinal Tavera, designing it for his sepulchre, consecrated it to St
John. The fine _artesonado_ ceiling is picked out in gold and black,
with carved flowers and figures; the altars are richly wrought and
painted. Antonio Ponz in the last century greatly praises Luiz Velasco's
three pictures here. On the opposite side of the great gates is the
Mozarabe chapel, set apart by Cisneros for the famous Gothic rite; the
porch is Gothic; the doors of good renaissance style, were wrought in
1524 by Juan Frances; and the frescoes, painted by John of Burgundy,
representing the conquest of Oran and triumph of the founder have no
great value. There is a retablo of St Francis placed by Dr Francisco of
Pisa, the historian of Toledo, who is buried outside. The chief
interest of the Mozarabe chapel is centred in its quaint old ritual
which may be heard here every morning at 9 A.M., and will be found
extremely puzzling to follow. The canons behind, in a sombre, flat
monotone, chant responses to the officiating priest at the altar. The
sound combines the enervating effect of the hum of wings, whirr of
looms, wooden thud of pedals, the boom and rush of immense wings
circling round and round. After the first stupefaction, I have never
heard anything more calculated to produce headache, nervous irritation,
or the contrary soporific effect. In summer it must be terrible. In an
old MS. of the Biblioteca in the last century there is a grave complaint
made that the Gothic Mozarabe rite had already fallen from its beautiful
solemnity, and that it was to be deplored that it should now be
performed with such little decency and so little in accord with the
founder's idea. The writer naïvely hopes that the advent of Carlos III.,
which promised such general reform, would lift up again a degraded
ritual and "that it would be placed in the rank of decency and splendour
that a vestige so singular and worthy of appreciation deserves." A hope
not realised if I may judge from my assistance at the service. There was
neither quaintness nor piety that I could see, but the canons looked and
gabbled as if their thoughts were several miles away, staring roundly at
the foreigners, and exchanging smiles as they altered their places.
There are many minor chapels and offices one must overlook in a general
description. The wood-work of the _Sala capitular_ and the _Anté sala_
was wrought by Copin of Holland and Antonio Gutierrez. The ceiling of
the _Anté sala_ is most charming, a brilliant moresque style, admirably
painted and of quite regal magnificence, one of the best specimens of
artesonada. The long carved
[Illustration: CAPITULAR DOOR IN TOLEDO CATHEDRAL]
cupboards on either side are Copin's and Durango's work. Copin's
especially is delightful, simple, dignified, not over elaborated. Both
are divided in panels which are covered with reliefs, exquisitely
designed. Vases, heads, figures, masks, and every kind of mediaeval
fancy abound. A Moorish doorway executed by Bonéfacio in 1510, leads
into the _Sala capitular_, one of the loveliest of Spain. The doors are
of a rich renaissance, full of busts, leafage, and gilt reliefs. The
painted arms of Cisneros and of Lopez de Ayala are worked into the
garlands above, and the archiepiscopal choir below is another good
specimen of Copin of Holland, who did so much for this cathedral. Round
the walls are the portraits of the archbishops, beginning with St
Eugenius. The old series ends with Cisneros, and the second begins with
William of Croy. Most of the recent portraits are wretched daubs. There
are paintings here by John of Burgundy on a level with those of the
Mozarabe chapel, while the effect of the Giordano ceiling is striking.
The light seems to fall in perpendicular rays. In the matter of
paintings the Cathedral would be poor enough but for a Titian and the
splendid picture of El Greco in the sacristy. When you have gazed at
that virile, majestic figure of Christ, felt the charm of its lofty
expression, of its wonderful suggestion of aloofness and fatality,
marvelled at the colouring, the splendid boldness of design and
grouping, the vigour and naturalness of the figure of the first plan
bent forward to bore a hole in the cross at his feet previous to
inserting the nails, you may ask yourself in dismay what gave rise to
the legend of El Greco's madness. Stay a moment. This is unfortunately
not the last word of El Greco. This grave and lovely _Expolio de Jesus_,
hardly second to that other astounding masterpiece, "The burial of Count
Orgaz" in Santo Tomé, has its lamentable sequel in the St John the
Baptist of the _Hospital de Afuera_, which lets you into the secret.
Whether or no El Greco ever went mad we have no means now of knowing,
though he undoubtedly gives the impression in the St John of genius
labouring under some wild and extraordinary influence. But the Expolio
is as perfect and sane a masterpiece as artist ever produced. All the
tones are cold and subdued, as if a brilliant imagination purposely
steadied and held itself in check to realise the highest and simplest
expression of repose. The agony is past, transient revolt is over, and
here stands the Son of Man in the hands of his ruthless enemies,
insusceptible to personal indignity, greater than death, the supreme
ideal of resignation, of its majesty rather than its sweetness. No
wonder the lovers of El Greco regard him as the precursor of Velasquez,
and will have it that Velasquez studied him as master, and from him
learned the secret of his own immortal dignity and cold majestic grace.
When you look long at this great picture, you wonder how an artist like
Théophile Gautier came to write the flippant nonsense he did about El
Greco. Even if the legend of the painter's madness were true, it is
certainly not apparent in this canvas. What is apparent is a complete
want, felt everywhere in El Greco's work, of sensibility of the more
subtle and penetrative kind, an inaptitude that made the limitation of
his art to conceive or paint emotion on a woman's face. The three Maries
are present, so close as to touch the robe of Jesus. Well, the three
faces express nothing stronger in feeling than curiosity, in the case of
the middle figure more slightly depressed by a vague instinct of passive
grief; in the case of the younger women such a curiosity as a passing
incident might excite, with neither a touch of terror nor abhorrence
much less that of martyred love. The dark and lovely head behind of the
third woman, said to be the painter's daughter, with the superb hand and
arm, is that of a young Toledan girl placidly watching some street
procession and looking for the appearance of her lover. The smile is not
far from the shadowed eyes and sweet, grave mouth, and the whole
suggests soft, young romance. A rash youth, passing at that moment, if
his eyes fell first upon her in the tragic scene, would greet her with
an eloquent smile, and probably fling her a kiss through the air, but he
would never suppose she was looking on at barbarous men as they bored
holes in a cross and tore the garments from the form of her Lord and
Saviour about to be crucified.
The same curious indifference to appropriate form and expression is
shown in his St John the Evangelist. The last of the row of apostles on
the right of the sacristy, a pallid, lean young man enveloped in the
peculiar tints of dull green and faded pink, one soon learns to
recognise as El Greco's hues of predilection, which are more than once
reproduced elsewhere in the figures of St Joseph, the infant Jesus and
Mary. This is not the dreamy and loving youth of the New Testament, full
of tenderness and mystical reverie. The face is delicately hard, long,
pointed and intellectual, its cold ardour clouded with a suggestion of
impatience and contempt.
Opposite the _Trasparente_ is the chapel of San Ildephonso. Painted on a
vault outside is an armed cavalier bearing a standard in one hand and an
emblazoned shield in the other. This is the famous Estevan Illan,
descended as we have seen from Don Pedro Paleologus, of imperial Greek
origin, and founder of the powerful family of the Toledos, since the
Dukes of Alba. The general effect of this chapel is costly rather than
beautiful. It is impossible not to be oppressed by the sensation of
display, not that it is in the least gaudy; it is too solidly wealthy
and artistic in its elaboration for that. The mouldings are rich, the
decorations are rich, and rich beyond calculation are the tombs. Grander
and less elaborate is the really great chapel of Santiago, better known
perhaps as the Constable's Chapel. This was built by Alvaro de Luna as a
vast mausoleum for himself and his wife. It is astonishingly bright when
you remember its dimensions and its imposing height; of sober taste
notwithstanding its flowered ogival style, subdued, while what the
Spaniards delight to call everything here, "sumptuous." The word indeed
may not be grudged in this instance, where it is sonorous and
appropriate. To do honour to this edifice, Don Alvaro de Luna commanded
truly miraculous tombs for himself and his wife, on which lay their
full-length figures in gilt-bronze, so fashioned that whenever mass was
recited, these life-sized figures rose from their recumbent attitudes,
and knelt during the service. On its conclusion, they quietly lay down
again. Such tombstones, had they remained, would speedily have turned
into a form of local entertainment for the townsfolk. But the great
Constable fell into his sovereign's disgrace, he poor, sorry, feeble
king, hounded into the basest ingratitude by the clamouring populace and
the Constable's jealous foes. So in the hour of his fall, the infante,
Don Enrique of Aragon, had the wonderful tombs with the gilt moving
statues, broken up, on which the Constable sarcastically addressed him
in verse:
"Si flota vos combatió
En verdad, señor infante
Mi bulto non vos prendió
Cuando fuistes mareante;
Porque ficiesedes nada
A una semblante figura,
Que estaba en mi sepultura
Para mi fui ordenada."
[Illustration: TOMBS OF COUNT ALVARO DE LUNA AND WIFE, THE CATHEDRAL,
TOLEDO]
The tombs that have replaced these were ordered by the Constable's
daughter, and erected, with Queen Isabel's permission, in 1489, to the
memory of a king's great servant and friend scandalously abandoned by
his master. For this Isabel had nearly all the virtues, barring, alas!
religious tolerance. She could be trusted to prove true to her own
friends, and not meanly condone betrayal of a subject in a
fellow-sovereign. But the Constable has fared all the better because of
the Infante's petty spite. I doubt if we should have been much
impressed--except as children are by dolls that squeak and walk, or as
the child in most of us is delighted with every kind of mechanical
spring, from the wheels of watches to cuckoo clocks and German
town-clocks, that send dear, quaint little men and women in and out with
the day's revolution--by these gilt tombs, and they serve a wiser and
nobler purpose as the exquisitely-wrought pulpits of Villalpando,
outside the _reja_ of the Capilla Major. Now Don Alvaro and Doña Juana
repose in sculptured marble between life-size kneeling figures of
singular impressiveness. Nothing could be grander and more massive than
the simple effect of both tombs. There are more beautiful ones, even in
Spain--the splendid Italian tomb of Cisneros at Alcala de Henares, tombs
in the Cathedral and Cartuja of Burgos, the grand and lovely tomb of
Tavera, Berruguete's last work, in the _Hospital de Afuera_--but,
nevertheless, these great sculptures of an obscure artist, Pablo Ortiz,
are worthy of the crowned and castellated mausoleum built for them. The
reliefs are gracious, the treatment fluent, large and sober. The noble
statues are unfortunately much mutilated, but the flow of folds, the
finish and delicacy of detail, are quite Italian. In the retablo are the
painted portraits of Don Alvaro and Doña Juana, painted by Juan of
Segovia, and on either side of the altar, under canopied tombs, lie
other figures.
The _artesonado_ ceiling of the Chapel of the New Kings is similar to
that of St John the Baptist. The Gothic retablo is one of the best of
the Cathedral. A passage leads to it, and the interior is extremely gilt
and ornate. The sovereigns are buried on either side of the chapter, the
first being Henry of Trastamare, the founder of the chapel. Rich as it
is in gilding, wrought-iron, marble and paintings, it looks small and
unimposing after the great chapel of St Jago. Mass is celebrated here
every morning at nine. An official in ragged and embroidered finery, at
the end of the chapter, stands, holding the crowned and jewelled mace
with the arms of Spain.
There is small space to dwell upon the incredible value of the church
treasures, only shown at stated periods. Seven canons open the seven
doors, each with a separate key. The hour for showing these matchless
splendours is 3 P.M., a bad one on account of the light, and the
miserable candle the sacristan carries is of small use. Here will you
see pearl and precious stones, embroidered mantles, such jewels and gold
and silver brocade as surely the eye of man never elsewhere beheld--the
rarest of wrought cloaks and robes and laces--all royal presents, or the
gifts of cardinals to the Virgin of the Sagrario. The Custodia is, for
sheer magnificence, a thing to gape at. It is the work, rather the
monument, of a German silver-smith, Henry of Arfe, and his son and
grandson. The guide-book describes it as of an unheard-of wealth in
jewels, gold work and chiselling. To attempt its description would
involve me in another chapter on the Cathedral. Perhaps the most
precious thing of all among so many treasures is the sad and mystical
wood statue of St Francis of Assisi, by Alonso Cano, some say, by his
pupil, Pedro de Mena, later critics aver. Unfortunately, it is vilely
placed in a corner, and as well, just in the middle of the face, the
glass cover is broken, so that it is difficult to obtain a real view of
the head without some portion of the features distorted.
The object of the devotion of the Chapel of the Treasury is a statue of
the Virgin, which Our Lady is said to have kissed on her descent from
heaven to bestow the chasuble on St Ildefonso. Hence the astounding
mantle embroidered by Felipe Corral, made of gold, pearls, rubies,
sapphires and emeralds. Other notable treasures are the charming
specimens of silver repoussé--one, the Rape of the Sabines, so
beautifully wrought as for years to have been attributed to Benvenuto
Cellini. To-day, the Flemish artist, Mathias Méline, is recognised as
the creator. It was the gift to the church of Cardinal Lorenzana. The
big silver figures on four globes, with belts and sandals all gleaming
with jewels, belong to the time of Felipe II. They command attention,
even in all this magnificence of precious metal, precious stones, silk,
lace and art; but I do not know who made these statues that represent
the four parts of the world.
Two hundred and fifty ounces of seed pearls, 85,000 pearls, as immense a
number of diamonds, rubies and amethysts, were expended alone on the
Virgin's celebrated mantle. As for the reliquaries of gold, silver and
rock-crystal, the church plate, the incensors, only an auctioneer's list
could do them justice. One hails them marvels of their kind, and passes
by. In staring, with an abashed modern gaze, unfamiliar with such
sights, at Arfe's masterpiece, the Custodio, that weighs its weight in
precious metal over 10,900 ounces, note the gold cross on the top, said
to have been wrought of the first piece of gold brought from America by
Columbus, and was raised by Mendoza over the surrendered walls of the
Alhambra in the same year.[18]
Historic interest is still more attached to the modest sword shown as
that of Alphonso VI., worn by this monarch on his triumphal entry into
Toledo, and to the original letter in Latin of St Louis of France to the
chapter of Toledo, on sending some sacred relics for the church. It
runs: "Luys, by the grace of God, King of the French, to his beloved in
Christ, the canons and all the clergy and church of Toledo, salutations
and love. Desiring to adorn your church with a precious gift, by the
hand of our beloved John, the venerable archbishop of Toledo, and at his
prayer, we send to you some precious parts of our venerable and
excellent sanctuaries that we had from the treasure of the Empire of
Constantinople as follows: some wood of our Lord's cross, a thorn of our
Lord's holy crown, some of the glorious Virgin's milk, some of our
Lord's crimson garment, worn by Him; of the napkin He wound round Him
when He washed His disciples' feet, of the sheet in which His body was
wrapped in the sepulchre, and some of the Saviour's swaddling clothes.
We beg and pray of your friendship in the Lord to accept and guard these
sacred relics, and in your masses and offices to keep us in benign
memory. Given at Etampes, the year of our Lord, 1248, month of May."
This document is stamped with a golden seal.
The _Ochavo_ is like everything here, an impressive chamber, the home of
vast treasure. It is a monument of bronze and marble, containing massive
silver coffins wonderfully wrought for the bones of St Leocadia and St
Eugenius, statues of silver and ivory, and priceless reliquaries. Behind
are guarded the church vestments. Nowhere are such embroideries and
brocades to be seen. The hundred altar-pieces are works of art to set
the mouth of the collector awatering. The older they are the more
lovely, and beside the early Gothic brocade-embroidery, the finest
effort of the last century seems poor and vulgar, though seen apart
would cause the beholder to exclaim at its loveliness. Whence did these
rude Goths obtain their secret of such exquisite work? and how has it
died from amongst us? Were the sacristan willing, and human nature
capable of such a prolonged effort of admiration, one might spend days
among these gold and silver embroidered brocades, and complacently dream
of impossible times. But when the sacristan has shown you a dozen
chasubles and a dozen altar-pieces, he thinks it quite enough--and so do
you, wearied from excess of strain upon admiration and ravenous envy.
The beautiful and massive tower which lends majesty to an exterior not
nearly so impressive as the interior of the Cathedral, was begun by
Rodrigo Alfonso in 1380, but the work went on very slowly until the
Archbishop Contreras put it into the hands of the architect, Alvar
Gomez, who finished it (1440). There have been changes since, especially
in 1660, when the capital was burnt and rebuilt. It is worth while to
ascend the interminable stairs to the belfry, not to marvel at the
largest bell, I believe, of the world, whose terrible note reaches as
far as Madrid, but to revel in the view. You seem to look down upon the
earth from Alpine heights. Below, through incredible depths of space,
flows the Tagus, with its broad horse-shoe curve that makes almost an
island of the town, and with charming little breaks in joyous verdure
and soft little dashes of blue shade and white mist, the sombre and
austere hills of Toledo make an upper and more violent rampart against
the world beyond. Such is the sense of imprisonment here, that the eye
instinctively seeks, as a chance of escape, the long white way of
Madrid. It is good to breathe a moment in so exalted an atmosphere, to
behold so vast and wonderful a scene, in which all remembrance of human
miseries vanishes, and our very joys drop into relative significance.
Nature has nowhere else attained a note of beauty harsher, more intense,
more indifferently sublime. Elsewhere you feel that an effort has been
made to captivate you, a deliberate combination of effects to win your
admiration. Not so here. The Moors never succeeded, during their long
sovereignty, in stamping the place with their voluptuous charm, as they
did in Granada, Cordova, and Valencia. They left it as they found it,
the stern home of revolt, the nest of mailed warriors and hardy
artisans, so hard and quarrelsome that not even their loves furnish us
with a soft legend, nor their literature a witching profile, or any hint
of seductive grace in their womanhood.
[Illustration: THE CATHEDRAL TOWER]